Starting an Email Migration

Now you’ve completed your signup process (click here if you haven’t), there are a few more steps necessary before you can run your first migration. Before anything else make sure IMAP connections are enabled on your source account, which is the address from which you are migrating. Almost all email providers have it enabled by default, but contact yours if IMAP is not currently enabled.

First Time G Suite Setup

If you’re moving to G Suite for the first time, you will have to direct all future incoming emails to your new G Suite email server. To do this you will be changing your domain’s MX (short for Mail Exchange) records. While doing so, also take note of a value called the TTL (also known as “Time to Live”) which is the number of seconds it will take for your MX records to change. Lower the TTL down to between 60 and 300 seconds, or otherwise you may be faced with email downtime. Before you entering your new MX records or proceeding further, please make sure that the TTL is lowered.

Once you’re certain that the TTL values are below 300, please follow the instructions on this page to find what values you need to input into the MX records to have incoming emails pointed to G Suite servers. Most major DNS providers now have a streamlined process for these steps, so please double check to see if this is true for your provider.

Once your MX Records, and emails, are pointing towards Google, you’re ready to launch the Carbo app from your G Suite account. You can find the Carbo migration tool in the top right of the screen under “More” in the App drop down menu. Alternatively, follow this link to access the same tool.

Depending whether someone is logged in as an administrator or just a user, the app is going to look a little different. This walkthrough will focus on how Carbo will look for an administrator of the domain.

Using Carbo as an Administrator

Once you launch the Carbo app, you will be taken directly to the email migration screen pictured below. From here, as an administrator, you will be able to migrate messages from any IMAP enabled email account to any Google account. Note that this could be your G Suite domain account, a user account within your G Suite domain, or even a personal Gmail account.

In Step 1, you will be selecting your source account, or the email address from which you are migrating emails. There are three main options:

My Domain - Select this option if the source account is of a user on your G Suite account. As administrator of the domain, you will not need to enter password information.

Gmail - Select this option if the email address is associated with any Google account other than your primary G Suite domain (including secondary domains, personal Gmail accounts, and accounts on a separate G Suite account). You will be required to enter the account’s login credentials.

More/IMAP - This option will be available if the email address is hosted by a third party provider. This is where you will be required to enter the host’s IMAP address.

Your host’s IMAP address must begin with either “imap://” or “imaps://”, where the extra “s” is a designation of whether SSL encryption is enabled on your source account. If you are unsure, try both to see what works with your provider’s IMAP address.

Step 2 is very similar, except you will be selecting the destination account to which the emails are migrating. Carbo is a migration tool for the G Suite Ecosystem, so your options here are limited to Google accounts. As an administrator, you can choose to migrate to any user’s address on your Domain or to a Google account outside of your G Suite domain. Though, as with setting the source account, login credentials for that Google account will be required.

Step 3 is the email address where you want to be contacted once your migration has begun, as well as when your migration has completed.